A Greek judge said on Tuesday that a case against nine Egyptian men for causing a shipwreck that killed many migrants last year can’t go forward in Greece. This decision caused concern in the European Union about border protection and asylum. The prosecutor told the court that Greece doesn’t have the right to handle this case.
The judge Eftichia Kontaratou made a decision at the start of the trial in Kalamata, Greece. People who support the defendants cheered and clapped at the courthouse when they heard the decision.
More than 500 people are thought to have died when the Adriana sank in one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean on its way from Libya to Italy. Only 104 people were saved from the crowded fishing boat. They were mostly men from Syria, Pakistan, and Egypt. 82 people didn’t make it and were found dead.
The lawyers said that the young people on the boat were part of the crew and responsible for treating passengers badly. They also said that the boat was too full and that caused it to flip and sink on June 14, 2023. But the defense team said that it wasn’t true. The nine men could have gone to prison for a long time if they were found guilty of the many crimes they were charged with, like helping people enter a country illegally and causing a ship to crash, which led to people dying.
The judge agreed with the public prosecutor’s suggestion to throw out the case because the boat sank in an area that doesn’t belong to Greece.
“The ship crashed in the middle of the ocean, so Greek courts can’t handle the case,” she said. “I suggest that we say they did nothing wrong. ”
International human rights groups criticized the case because they thought the defendants didn’t get a fair trial. This is because the Naval Court is still investigating the sinking and the actions of the Greek coast guard.
The trawler sank while sailing in waters that Greece is responsible for rescuing people in. A coast guard boat and other ships were near the boat for a long time, but couldn’t stop a lot of people from dying.
Many people who were saved from the sinking ship said it happened when the Greek coast guard tried to tow the ship. Greek officials say this is not true. It’s not clear how exactly the sinking happened.
The nine people were charged because nine survivors said they did something wrong. The lawyers said that the witnesses were forced to testify, and their clients were just passengers who were blamed for the sinking because the authorities wanted to blame overcrowded conditions.
Dimitris Choulis, a lawyer on the defence team, said we should now focus on how the Adriana ship sank.
“The court had to be very brave to make this decision and say that these people are not the smugglers,” Choulis said. “Now we can’t blame the bad smugglers anymore. We have to figure out who caused the shipwreck. ”
Choulis said the Greek coast guard and Europe’s migration policies caused the tragedy. He said it’s important to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Judith Sunderland, who works at Human Rights Watch, said the same thing.
“Now that the survivors have been through a difficult time, we need the Naval Court to finish its investigation and figure out who is responsible for the many people who died in the Pylos shipwreck,” she said. Pylos is a town in Greece that was near where the trawler sunk. The shipwreck is now called by the name of that town.
The nine people who have been in jail since the boat accident were supposed to be let out on Wednesday after everything was finished.
Another lawyer, Spyros Pantazis, said that the Kalamata court made the right decision today. “This case required a lot of time and hard work. ” After a long time, the entire defense team is very happy.
Dalia Abdel-Magid, the aunt of defendant Mohammed Emad Abdel-Magid, had a strong emotional response when she heard that her nephew had been found not guilty.
“I’m very happy and I just want to hug him and bring him with me,” she said. “I hope things get better for him now. ”
Earlier, a few people who were protesting fought with the police outside the court. No one got seriously hurt but two people were taken by the police. Special police officers kept the peace in the courtroom.
“Justice won” Stelios Kouloglou, a member of the European Parliament from Greece, said that it should not happen again for innocent people to stay in jail for a year. 2,000 people in Greek jails are thought to be innocent. They have been accused or found guilty of smuggling. Most people are innocent.
At the beginning of the trial, Kontaratou asked all nine people accused of a crime some questions with the help of a translator. The person accused said they meant to go to Italy, not Greece, and many said they didn’t do anything wrong.
She admitted that there were no Greeks on the ship, it wasn’t Greek, and all the documents said the ship was 47 nautical miles away.
Last year, the leader of the United Nations called the shipwreck “very terrible. ”
The boat sinking made European governments feel like they need to do more to keep migrants and asylum seekers safe when they try to come to Europe. More and more people are trying to come to Europe without permission, and something needs to be done to help them stay safe.
Frontex, the European border protection agency, says that there have been more illegal border crossings at EU frontiers for the past three years. This is the highest it has been since the migration crisis in 2015-2016, mainly because more people are arriving by sea.